accommodation establishment

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Addo Palace Ndebele Private Reserve pictorial

Just before peak season hit us I was on a social media workshop road trip in the Karoo and Addo areas.  The night before the workshop in Addo I got to stay at Addo Palace in the Ndebele Private Reserve bordering the Addo Elephant National Park.  It's always nice to stay and experience somewhere new and this was no different. Ndebele Private Resevre is a 2500 acre game farm in the foothills of the Zuurberg Mountains and about 30 minutes…

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05/01/2015
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Spending a weekend at the 150 year old Ann’s Villa

Its a hot day in the southern Karoo just north of the Zuurberg in the Eastern Cape.  Not a breath of air moving.  Cicadas are chirping away in the surrounding veld.  Its been four days since you left the small port town of Port Elizabeth and after struggling up the rough Zuurberg Pass the previous day and camping out near the Zuurberg Inn, the day is spent making your way down the pass and into the dry and flat area beyond. …

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03/10/2014
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Spending the weekend at The Milk House in Hankey

The Gamtoos Valley west of Port Elizabeth is often just seen as the entrance to the Baviaanskloof yet its a tranquil and very scenic farming area.  I visit the valley a couple of times a year to participate in the annual Gamtoos Tourism Adventure Drive, the Citrus festival and the Patensie Boere Basaar.  This also means that I spend a lot of time in the Patensie area so when Carol Pearson of The Milk House contacted me to invite us…

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16/07/2014
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Eight Bells Mountain Inn

Eight Bells Mountain Inn used to be one of my regular stops on tour back when I was a tourist guide but since then I haven't had a chance to visit.  Until a few weeks ago.  A return trip from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth meant that I had to stay over in Mossel Bay to be able to do some business on the Garden Route and Rene' Bongers, MD of Eight Bells heard that I was heading that way and…

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26/06/2014
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Cradock Tuishuise

 I often wonder how many people who have visited Cradock would never have stayed over in the town if it wasn't for the Tuishuise.  The Tuishuise on Market Square was built between 1840 and 1870 and housed artisans like harness makers, wheelwrights, smithies and carpenters who made a living from the horses, oxen and wagons passing through on their way north.  Unfortunately by the early 1900's oxen and wagons where replaced by trains and cars and the artisans started to loose their livelihood. …

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10/03/2014
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Twelve Apostles wine room

While having lunch at the Twelve Apostles Hotel, I took a walk around the restaurant between the starter and main meal to snap a couple of pics and stumbled on their wine room.  Its not so much a wine celler, as you don't go down steps into a dark stone room full of vintage wine and cobwebs, but a seperate cold room to store and display their wine in.  But that doesn't matter.  Now I'm not much of a wine drinker…

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22/06/2013
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Atlantic Point Backpackers

When you mention the word "backpackers lodge" to anybody, most people would probably associate it with "dorms where youngsters from all over the world travelling with backpacks would sleep".  If that was your answer as well you would partly be right.  But only partly as you could also be totally wrong.  Let me tell you why.  Firstly, although most people staying in backpackers lodgers are youngsters, there are also more mature people backpacking these days.  Secondly, backpackers lodges are so much more…

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19/06/2013
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5 star meal – Lunch at Twelve Apostiles

Its not every day that I get to have lunch in a smart place like the 5 star Twelve Apostles Hotel and looking at me in my Batman t-shirt in the last picture I clearly wasn't ready for it either.  The Twelve Apostles sits overlooking the surrounding mountains and ocean on Cape Town's Atlantic Seaboard just a couple of kilometres past the upmarket suburb of Clifton.  The hotel with all its facilities is truly award winning and amongst their accolades are the following.Sliver's Silver…

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20/05/2013
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What’s in a star (grading)?

What's in a star? Well, lets first see what is a star?a. A self-luminous celestial body consisting of a mass of gas held together by its own gravity in which the energy generated by nuclear reactions in the interior is balanced by the outflow of energy to the surface, and the inward-directed gravitational forces are balanced by the outward-directed gas and radiation pressures. Eish, that's a bit heavy. Let's just say its the twinkling points of light in the night…

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05/05/2013
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Pumba Game Reserve lodges

I absolutely love visiting private game reserves, who wouldn't? Luxury accommodation, excellent food, personal service, sipping drinks around a camp fire under the stars and, my ultimate favorite about game reserves, going on game drives in the late afternoon and early morning. I've discovered photos I haven't posted before and here are three from the magnificent Pumba Game Reserve between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown showing some of their accommodation.  I got to visit Pumba while showing some media around in…

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25/03/2013